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1. :
Step 3: Explore the Alternatives
After addressing the question What do we want?, it is natural to ask, What are our options? The ideal decision maker, if such a person exists, would lay out all the available courses of action and then choose the one that would best achieve his or her objective. Given human limitations, decision makers cannot hope to identify and evaluate all possible options. The cost of doing so simply would be too great. Still, one would hope that attractive options would not be overlooked or, if discovered, not mistakenly dismissed. No analysis can begin with all the available options in hand. However, a sound decision framework should be able to uncover options in the course of the analysis.
Most managerial decisions involve more than a once-and-for-all choice from among a set of options. Typically, the manager faces a sequence of decisions from among alternatives.
At the outset, management at Time Inc. had to decide whether or not to develop Picture Week for market testing. The whole point of the development and testing program was to provide information on which management could base its main decision: whether or not to undertake a full-fledged, nationwide launch of the magazine. Notice that the company could have launched the magazine without extensive market testing. However, it rejected this riskier strategy in favor of a contingent plan of action: to undertake the testing program and then launch the magazine if and only if the test results and economic forecasts were both favorable.
Sequential decision making also lies at the heart of the negotiation dilemma which many firms face. Each side must formulate its current negotiation stance (how aggressive or conciliatory an offer to make) in light of current court results and the offers (both its own and its opponent's) made to date. Thus, a commonly acknowledged fact about negotiation is that the main purpose of an opening offer is not to have the offer accepted (if it were, the offer probably was far too generous); rather, the offer should direct the course of the offers to follow.
Step 4: Predict the Consequences
Depending on the situation, the task of predicting the consequences may be straightforward or formidable. Sometimes elementary arithmetic suffices. For instance, the simplest profit calculation requires only subtracting costs from revenues. Or suppose the choice between two safety programs is made according to which saves the greater number of lives per dollar expended. Here the use of arithmetic division is the key to identifying the preferred alternative.
MODELS
In more complicated situations, however, the decision maker often must rely on a model to describe how options translate into outcomes. A model is a simplified description of a process, relationship, or other phenomenon. By deliberate intent, a model focuses on a few key features of a problem to examine carefully how they work while ignoring other complicating and less important factors. Of course, the main purposes of models are to explain and to predictto account for past outcomes and to forecast future ones.
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The kinds of predictive models are as varied as the decision problems to which they are applied. Many models rest on economic relationships.
Suppose the multinational steel company predicts that a 10 percent price cut will increase unit sales by 15 percent in the foreign market. The basis for this prediction is the most fundamental relationship in economics: the demand curve.
Other models rest on engineering, statistical, legal, and scientific relationships.
So far as prediction is concerned, a key distinction can be drawn between deterministic and probabilistic models. A deterministic model is one in which the outcome is certain (or close enough to a sure thing that it can be taken as certain).
For instance, a soft-drink manufacturer may wish to predict the numbers of individuals in the 10-to-25 age group over the next ten years. There are ample demographic statistics with which to make this prediction. Obviously, the numbers in this age group five years from now will consist of those who today are between ages 5 and 20, minus a predictable small number of deaths. Thus, a simple deterministic model suffices for the prediction. However, the forecast becomes much less certain when it comes to estimating the total consumption of soft drinks by this age group or the market share of a given product. Obviously, the market share of a particular drink say, one with ten percent or more real juicewill depend on many unpredictable factors, including the advertising, promotion, and price decisions of the firm and its competitors, as well as consumer tastes. As the term suggests, a probabilistic model accounts for a range of possible future outcomes, each with a probability attached. For instance, the five-year market-share forecast for the natural-juice soft drink might take the following form: a 30 percent chance of less than a 3 percent share, a 25 percent chance of a 3 to 6 percent share, a 30 percent chance of a 6 to 8 percent share, and a 15 percent chance of an 8 to 15 percent share
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1. human limitations;
2. sound decision;
3. once-and-for all choice;
4. negotiations stance;
5. engineering relationships;
6. legal relationships;
7. scientific relationships;
8. probabilistic model.
9. decision makers;
10. full-fledged;
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5. : , , , , . The basis for this prediction is the most fundamental relationship in economics: the demand curve.
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1. Given human limitations, decision makers cannot hope to identify and
evaluate all possible options.
2. The cost of doing so simply would be too great.
3. Still, one would hope that attractive options would not be overlooked or, if
discovered, not mistakenly dismissed.
4.No analysis can begin with all the available options in hand.
5. However, a sound decision framework should be able to uncover options in
the course of the analysis.
7. :
1. What is according to the author natural logic of a manager?
2. What would an ideal decision maker do?
3. What is a sequential decision making?
4. What is a commonly acknowledged fact about negotiation?
5. When does elementary arithmetics suffice?
6. When must decision maker rely on models?
7. What is a model in general?
8. What types of predicative models are mentioned in the text?
9. What involves more than a once-and-for-all choice from among a set of options?
10. What lies at the heart of the negotiation dilemma?
